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Publishing and Devolving the Maintenance of a Prospectus

Publishing and Devolving the Maintenance of a Prospectus. Paul Browning University of Bristol (paul.browning@bris.ac.uk). Motivation. Expedite the process and re-use information Separate the design from the content

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Publishing and Devolving the Maintenance of a Prospectus

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  1. Publishing and Devolving the Maintenance of a Prospectus Paul Browning University of Bristol (paul.browning@bris.ac.uk)

  2. Motivation • Expedite the process and re-use information • Separate the design from the content • On-line prospectus should become the authoritative version • Printed version should be derivative - a snapshot of the on-line version • Maintenance of the information should be devolved (improve transparency)

  3. Before …. • Collation/updating of the course information from departments and services • Preparation of the combined text using word-processing/desk-top publishing tools • Dispatch of the text for printing • Reverse engineering text into a Web-deliverable version

  4. After…. • Updating via Web-forms of course information held in databases BY departments and services • Web-deliverable version produced instantly and automatically • Monolithic file produced from databases - imported by desk-top publishing tools • Dispatch of the text for printing

  5. One solution • FileMaker Pro V4 (http://www.filemaker.com/) • Inexpensive, multi-platform, runs over TCP/IP • Works out of the box - no learning cliff • Web companion plug-in - first database published inside 5 minutes • CGI-type stuff and CDML if you want to get your hands dirty

  6. Starting point • Paper prospectus • Spot the pattern - design the databases • Used Perl filters on marked up Word documents to generated tab-separated files for import into databases

  7. Designing the pages • Based on existing on-line version • By separating design from content reduced pages from ~400 to ~10 • Two sets of pages • for the reader (pretty) • for the editor (forms-based, not pretty)

  8. A CDML Primer • Claris Dynamic Markup Language • Four sorts of tags • standard HTML input types (e.g. Text, Select, Submit) • Action (e.g. -Find, -New, -Edit) • Variable (e.g. -DB, -Format, -Error) • Replacement (e.g. [FMP-Field], [FMP-If], [FMP-Include])

  9. Problems • Heterogeneous legacy data • Loss of flexibility • Text-only

  10. Issues • Non-standard? • Performance? • Will it scale? • Cacheing?

  11. Where next? • Protocol/mechanism for updating • Incorporating images • Undergraduate prospectus • Integrating other data sources (e.g. personnel, unit catalogue)

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